1 1 Moorer. Punj.
2 Bokh. ii. 309 ;
3 Elph. Ace. of
4 Caubul, 80; Fe-
5 rishta, iil, 116.
6 160 ROT.
7 neys ; the apartments are in consequence stained with smoke, and
8 indeed they are generally very dirty. The streets are so narrow
9 that a camel in passing occupies the entire breadth from side to
10 side. Theair, in consequence, is very close and unwholesome, and
11 this evil is increased by filth being allowed to accumulate, in great
12 dunghills, in the open places of the town. Numbers of loathsome-
13 -looking, diseased, and famished dogs haunt the city, and are its
14 only scavengers. There are forty mosques, in which prayers are
15 still recited, and twice that number in a state of ruin and deser-
16 tion. The great mosque stands on an elevated site in the north-
17 east part of the town, and was built at the commencement of the
18 seventeenth century by the lieutenant of the Emperor Acbar. It
19 is a massive, gloomy pile of red brick, covered with three domes,
20 and coated with glazed porcelain tiles. In an adjacent shrine is
21 kept ahair in amber, in a gold case set with rubies and emeralds,
22 and inclosed in another of wood enriched with silver. This the
23 pious Mahometan undoubtingly believes to be a hair of the beard
24 of his prophet, and a number of guardians of this precious relic
25 are supported at the public expense.
26 Roree has a spacious and well-built serai, or lodging-place
27 for travellers, but it has been allowed to fall into great decay.
28 There are two bazaars, one for grain, the other for miscella-
29 neous articles, and both are tolerably well supplied, but they are
30 ill-built and ruinous. Manufactures are few and unimportant.
31 They embrace the fabrication of paper of indifferent quality,
32 leather, silks, and cottons, and the dyeing and printing of the
33 last-named article. The population is mixed, consisting of
34 Hindoos, indigenous Sindians, Belooches, Afghans, and Moguls,
35 almost universally in a state of miserable poverty, and living in
36 avery wretched maaner. All trades and handicrafts, with the
37 exception of works in gold, silver, and jewellery, are in the
38 hands exclusively of Mahometans; the Hindoos devote them-
39 selves chiefly to banking, money-broking, and similar traffic,
40 The population is estimated at about 8,000. Lat. 27° 44’, long.
41 68° 53’.
42 ROTAS, in the Punjab, an extensive fort six miles west of the
43 right or western bank of the river Jailum.! The interior is two
44 miles and half long, and is of an oblong, narrow form, having its
45 two sides and eastern end resting upon the edge of ravines, which
46 divide it from a table-land of clevation equal to that of the hill on